Annotation (Nonfiction): What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe

Bibliographical Information

Title: What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848

Author: Daniel Walker Howe

Genre: Nonfiction

Subgenre: History

Historical Period: Antebellum period

Publication Date: October 2007

Number of Pages: 928

Synopsis

The fifth volume of the Oxford History of the United States, Daniel Walker Howe has written the great synthesis history of this period ever. Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for History and the American History Book Prize, What Hath God Wrought covers a period of history that gets overshadowed by its bookends: the First Generations of the Americans that fought for and won independence, and the Third Generation that fought in the Civil War. Howe argues that American democracy was revolutionized by the growth of the market economy, the awakening of Protestant churches and the creation of political parties. Along with the development of new communications technologies and transportation methods, America found its “manifest destiny” in expanding west beyond the Mississippi River. However, with all the great things America created, the ills of the past inflated with the expansion of slavery and the removal of Native Americans from the Southeast and Midwest.

Characteristics of History

• What Hath God Wrought features numerous several characteristics of non-fiction for non-task based reading.
• The book may not read exactly like a novel, but has an incredible narrative that acts like a story’s part one culminating eventually with the Civil War.
• For patrons who are interested in the Civil War may find the subject of the antebellum period that features numerous political and military leaders from that period to be of great interest.
• Despite it being a history book, it is not hindered by a ridiculous number of citations and side stories. Each chapter covers a fragment of the story that are narratives in their own right.
• The author explores incredible characters like James K. Polk, Samuel Morse, Andrew Jackson, and Henry Clay. The author uses actual historical events to frame the microcosm the plot explores.
• Like most histories, Howe’s book features incredible maps and illustrations.
• As it is meant to teach, What Hath God Wrought has an ominous tone, as the nation moved closer toward fracturing with the development of political parties, and horrible human atrocities were propagated by the American federal and state governments on minorities.

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